Meat Goat Industry Growth Opportunity

The meat goat industry is one of the fastest growing agriculture areas with a very bright future. However many people considering the meat goat industry for possible business opportunities do not have the appropriate view of the industry potential. We will take a logical approach to trying to help newcomers to this industry better understand the current market and future growth opportunities. This approach will have the following major themes:

• Don't compare the Boer Goat market with the Emu market from several years ago.

• Consider the history of meat goats rather than focusing on "Boer Goats"

• Who is eating goat meat

• Ethnic population trends in US

• Other opportunities for meat goats

Don't Compare Boer Goats to Emus

One thing we have heard over and over again is "the trend of buying and raising boer goats is just like the Emus several years ago". We hear that from relatives, friends and people considering getting boer goats. There is only one thing similar to the different animals and that is the prices were very high when they both initially came into the US and some very big profits were potentially made by those people and then the prices started dropping. The simple reason for those high prices were because of the low number of animals available in the US and the difficulty in getting them here.

Now lets look at the difference between "creating a new consumer demand" vs "trying to meet the demand of an existing and growing consumer demand". We did not ever get into the Emu business but we have heard lots of horror stories from people that lost a ton of money in it. Consider what the market was for Emus prior to fad hitting the US. You saw them in the zoo and that was about it. The US population was in a healthy food phase and chicken was one of the healthiest meats to eat. Now if people like a small chicken for meat then they will surely love meat from a big chicken....... Not really. There was never a real market for Emu meat prior to their being brought to the US and a market was never developed. It is very difficult to CREATE a new consumer demand.

History of Meat Goats and Boer Goats

For a moment forget the name "Boer goat" and replace it with "meat goat" because that is all that it is. There would be little to no market for Boer goats if there was no meat goat market. There is nothing exotic about Boers other than this breed of meat goat has been refined for over 50 years by South African breeders. I would like you to also forget that you only have a US viewpoint. Here are some facts that you need to consider.

• There is more goat meat eaten in the world than any other meat animal. 65 - 70% of all red meat eaten in the world is goat meat.
• There is more goat milk consumed in the world than cow milk
• The goat is the one of the oldest domesticated animals in the world

The important fact to understand here is that there is NO "NEW" CONSUMER DEMAND TO CREATE with goat meat. The demand is there and most people in the US just did not realize it.

The Boer goat is important because it has become the catalyst to the world meat goat industry because of the following breed traits:

• Fast growth - a boer buck can be 90 pounds at 3 months old and 200 pounds at 12 months old.
• High Productivity - the average number of kids born per doe are 2
• Highly Versatile - the boer can adjust to almost any climate
• Complementary browser - the boer gets many things cattle do no utilize. On average 8 goats get run where 1 cow can.

Who is Eating Goat Meat?

The meat goat industry is built around ethnic demand and social traditions for the product. This demand comes from the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Southeastern Asia, South America, Central America and the West Indies. The leading countries in goat meat production are:

1. China
2. India
3. Pakistan
4. Nigeria
5. Iran
6. Bangladesh
7. Ethiopia
8. Turkey
9. Indonesia
10. Egypt

As more immigrants come to the U.S., the demand for goat meat increases. The largest goat-consuming ethnic populations in the U.S. are Hispanics, Moslems and Carribean Islanders. As you can see in the statistics to the right, there has been dramatic growth in the immigrants to the U.S. and they are coming from countries where goat meat is a a central part of their life. The growth in U.S. Federally inspected slaughtered meat goats is 1981 - 62,000 slaughtered 1985 - 124,000 slaughtered 1989 - 225,000 slaughtered 1994 - 350,000 slaughtered

This is a 500% growth in 13 years. This growth is dramatic but it does not show the real numbers of the total slaughtered meat goats because many of them do not go through Federally inspected plants. The Moslem faith requires that livestock is slaughtered according to strict Islamic laws  and therefore they have to slaughter their own animals which are not captured in these statistics.

The graph to the left shows the dramatic growth in meat goats in Canada. Canada has similar immigration growth as the U.S. and Canada has been the doorway of the South African Boer goats coming to the U.S. You can see the numbers sharply increase around the time the Boer goats started coming to the U.S. A recent survey of meat goat producers in Canada revealed that 62% of meat goat sales were made at the farm gate with the remainder made through auction markets. 25% of the farm gate sales (16% of all meat goat sales) were made directly to consumers.

 Ethnic population trends in US

These estimated increases in different ethnic populations in the U.S. will increase the demand for goat meat.